Vienna mine-free

It is the nature of the WWII Soviet mine-free inscriptions that they constantly become fewer. At best they stop their decay, as on the Stephansdom of Vienna, where it was put under protective glass, or on the museum of Dresden, where it was even cast in bronze. But it is rare that a new copy emerges, which I have seen now for the first time, in Vienna on Josefsplatz, at the corner of Bräunerstraße. For years I passed right by when going to the ancient reading room of the Nationalbibliothek, but it has come to light only now, and it has also been beautifully restored. Sarcastically, it confronts old Franz Joseph calling his peoples to war against the Russians, across the way on the facade of the library.

Día del Juicio en Viena

El catálogo y el volumen con el estudio salieron hace unas semanas, y el cartel está ya colgado en la cafetería Alt Wien, donde el público se informa mirando las paredes de los acontecimientos más recientes de la vida cultural vienesa. El autor, sentado bajo el póster, hojea su obra satisfecho –con todo motivo–. Ayer tarde, en la inauguración de la magnífica exposición Weltuntergang. Jüdisches Leben und Sterben im ersten Weltkrieg (El Día del Juicio. Vida y muerte judías en la Primera Guerra Mundial), la gran sala del Museo Judío de Viena estaba completamente abarrotada. Además de la directora del museo Danielle Spera, el comisario de exposiciones Marcus G. Patka, y el presidente del Banco Raiffeisen, patrocinador de la exposición, también intervinieron el príncipe Ulrich Habsburg-Lothringen, bisnieto del mismísimo archiduque Federico, Comandante en jefe del ejército de la Monarquía Austro-Húngara –que hace un siglo se reunió con los judíos de Podhajce– y el profesor Oliver Rathke, uno de los mayores expertos en la historia de Austria del siglo XX. Este último, en su recorrido por la historia de los judíos de la monarquía desde la edad de oro de finales del siglo XIX hasta la década de 1920, recordó que Francisco José también fue llamado «el Emperador Judío» por sus contemporáneos porque rechazó el antisemitismo y contribuyó cuanto pudo a la seguridad jurídica de sus súbditos judíos, más tarde eliminada por los estados sucesores. Así, no es casualidad que los judíos desde Austria a Galizia se encontraran entre los más fieles partidarios de la Monarquía. Su participación en la Primera Guerra Mundial como soldados fue del 10 %, muy por encima de la ratio del 4 % de la población total. Pero además colaboraron en el apoyo a la zona de influencia con la suscripción de préstamos de guerra y auxiliando a los 80.000 judíos de Galizia que huyeron del frente oriental hacia Viena.

La exposición comienza también recordando la memoria de su lealtad al gobernante y a Austria. Desde las imágenes familiares de la celebración de la Pascua bajo la imagen del Emperador y con el rabino dando la bendición de Año Nuevo a los reclutas judíos, llegamos poco a poco hasta el estallido de la guerra y la masiva leva de judíos, mientras que un mapa digital grande al fondo muestra, segundo a segundo, los cambios sucesivos de los frentes de guerra.

Aunque no relacionados específicamente con los judíos, uno de los más fascinantes temas de la Primera Guerra Mundial ahora redescubiertos, los carteles de la guerra, tienen dedicada también una pequeña habitación. La exposición selecciona casi al azar entre los miles que se produjeron durante la guerra, con una abundante selección, asimismo, de carteles de la Entente, que representan a las potencias centrales como hunos sedientos de sangre y émulos del diablo. Un pequeño rincón, bastante más deprimente, observa los anuncios de los comerciantes de prótesis y de los cirujanos plásticos de guerra.

El segundo mayor frente de guerra, el de Galizia, casi olvidado después de la década de 1920 pero que en los últimos tiempos ha recibido nuevos enfoques, afectó fundamentalmente a los judíos de la Monarquía, muchos de los cuales vivían en aquella zona. Así, la exposición dedica una sala aparte a Galicia y a los judios galizianos afectados por la guerra. Presenta su vida antes de desencadenarse el conflicto, las imágenes del teatro de la guerra, los refugiados, los affiches de las autoridades, e ilustra con muchas imágenes nuevas aquel evento sobre el que hemos escrito ya un par de veces: los comandantes en jefe de los Habsburgo visitando el frente oriental y encontrando allí a los judíos de Galizia.

Sin embargo, lo más destacado de la exposición tiene que ver con Jerusalén. No se trata de afirmar que fuera entonces, durante la guerra, el centro de gravedad de los judíos de la Monarquía, pero las investigaciones de los últimos años han descubierto aspectos muy interesantes gracias, entre otras personas, a los co-autores de los capítulos sobre Tierra Santa del catálogo y el estudio: Robert-Tarek Fischer y György Sajó –nuestro Két Sheng del Río Wang–. La presencia de las tropas austro-húngara y alemana en el frente de Gaza, en alianza con el imperio otomano, dio un sentido más amplio al título de «Rey de Jerusalén» que ostentaba Francisco José por herencia de los Habsburgo desde la cruzada del rey húngaro Andreas II. El gran número de judíos de origen galiciano –ciudadanos austríacos– que por entonces vivía en Palestina dio la bienvenida a aquellos ejércitos como auténticos compatriotas. La sala central de la exposición enriquece esta parte poco explorada de la historia con muchas contribuciones nuevas y toda una serie de objetos expuestos por primera vez para iluminar un entresijo fascinante de la Primera Guerra Mundial y sus vínculos con los judíos de la Monarquía .

Al fondo de la sala se proyecta un cortometraje donde nuestro amigo el médico Norbert Schwake, cuidador del cementerio militar alemán de Nazaret de la Primera Guerra Mundial y principal conocedor de las tumbas de los soldados alemanes y austro-húngaros en Israel, presenta los cementerios militares de la Primera Guerra Mundial en Tierra Santa. Aquí está enterrado el comandante en jefe de la división de artillería austro-húngara en Palestina, el Capitán Truszkowski, sobre cuyo ajetreado destino después de morir, con sus otras cuatro tumbas, ya hemos escrito.

El tiempo vuela mientras nos sumimos entre estos objetos de Jerusalén reviviendo las anécdotas que esconden. A las 10 de la noche los conserjes, pidiendo disculpas, comienzan a instar a los numerosos asistentes para que vayan saliendo. Apenas tenemos tiempo de echar un vistazo a las últimas tres salas donde se expone el papel de los soldados judíos en el servicio británico en Palestina, el trabajo de las mujeres judías en el interior del país y la aparición de organizaciones judías en la Viena de la posguerra, con el fortalecimiento del sionismo. Lo contaremos pronto, después de haber estudiado el catálogo y el volumen de ensayos.

Doomsday in Vienna

The catalog and essay volume were published a few weeks ago, and the poster is already hung in the Alt Wien coffee shop, where the public is informed from the wall about the most recent events of Vienna’s cultural life. The author, sitting under the latter, leafs through the former contentedly, with good reason. Yesterday evening, at the opening of the gorgeous exhibition Weltuntergang. Jüdisches Leben und Sterben im Ersten Weltkrieg (Doomsday. Jewish life and death in the First World War), the great hall of Vienna’s Jewish Museum was completely packed. Aside from museum director Danielle Spera, exhibition curator Marcus G. Patka, and president of the Raiffeisen Bank, sponsors of the exhibition, a speech was also given by Prince Ulrich Habsburg-Lothringen – the great-grandson of the same Archduke Frederick, Commander-in-Chief of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy’s army, who a century ago met the Jews of Podhajce –, and Professor Oliver Rathke, one of the foremost experts on 20th-century Austrian history. The latter, in his overview of the history of the Monarchy’s Jews from the late 19th-century golden age until the 1920s, recalled that Franz Joseph was also called “Jewish Emperor” by the contemporaries, because he rejected anti-Semitism, and created much legal certainty for his Jewish subjects, later unkown in the successor states. It is no coincidence then, that Jews from Austria to Galicia were among the most loyal supporters of the Monarchy. Their participation in WWI as soldiers was 10%, which exceeded by far their 4% ratio in the complete population. But they also did their share in the support of the hinterland, the underwriting of war loans, and providing for their 80 thousand Galician fellow believers fleeing from the Eastern front to Vienna.

The exhibition also begins by recalling the memory of their loyalty to the ruler and Austria. From the images of the family celebrating Passover under the image of the Emperor and the rabbi giving New Year’s blessing to the Jewish recruits, we gradually come to the outbreak of the war and the massive joining up of Jews, while a large digital map in the background shows second by second the day-to-day changes of the war fronts.

Although not specifically Jewish-related, nevertheless one of the recently rediscovered topics of WWI, posters of war also receive a separate small room. The exhibition almost randomly selects from the wartime production of several thousands, also with an abundant selection of posters of the Entente, which represent the Central Powers as bloodthirsty Huns and the rivals of the devil. A small, but more depressing corner looks over the ads of the artificial limb dealers and war plastic surgeons.

The second largest front of the war, the Galician front, which was almost forgotten after the 1920s, and has only recently received a new focus, fundamentally affected the Jews of the Monarchy, many of whom lived here. Thus the exhibition devotes a separate room to Galicia and the war-torn Galician Jews. They present their pre-war life, the images of the theater of war, the refugees, the affiches of the authorities, and illustrate with many new images the event about which we have written twice already: the Habsburg commanders-in-chief visiting the Eastern front and encountering there the Galician Jews.

However, the highlight of the exhibition is clearly Jerusalem. Not as if it had been the center of gravity of the Monarchy’s Jews during the war, but because research in recent years has produced the most impressive result in this field, due to, inter alia, the co-authors who penned the Holy Land chapters of the catalog and essay volume, Robert-Tarek Fischer and György Sajó, río Wang’s Két Sheng. The presence of the Austro-Hungarian and German troops at the front in Gaza in alliance with the Ottoman empire gave a new emphasis to Franz Joseph’s title of “King of Jerusalem”, inherited by the Habsburgs from the early 13th-c. crusade of the Hungarian king Andreas II. The large number of Galician Jews – Austrian citizens – then living in Palestine also welcomed them as fellow citizens. This central hall of the exhibition enriches this aspect with many new contributions and objects exhibited for the first time concerning this little-known chapter of the history of the First World War and the Jews of the Monarchy.

A short movie is screened at the back of the hall, in which our friend, the physician Norbert Schwake, curator of the WWI German military cemetery of Nazareth, and the chief expert of the German and Austro-Hungarian soldiers’ graves in Israel, presents  the WWI military cemeteries in the Holy Land. Here is buried the commander-in-chief of the Austro-Hungarian artillery division in Palestine, Captain Truszkowski, about whose troubled fate after death and his four other graves we have already written.

Time runs unobserved, while we browse among the objects of Jerusalem, reviving the anecdotes connected with them. At 10 p.m. the attendants, apologizing, start to urge the still numerous attendees toward the exits. We barely have time to look around in the last three exhibition halls presenting the role of the Jewish soldiers in British service in Palestine, the work of the Jewish women in the hinterland, and the post-war emergence of Jewish organizations in Vienna and the strengthening of Zionism. However, about all these we will write soon, in a detailed review of the catalog and essay volume.

Hawelka

“Although Leopold Hawelka cannot remember the Emperor, he acts as if he saw His Majesty every day. Who has once visited Café Hawelka, will know what I mean. Herr Leopold is blessed with that science of clairvoyance, which is the privilege of the truly great restaurateurs, and thanks to which he finds out all your wishes. Herr Leopold is just sitting in the corner, under the weight of his hundred years, sipping coffee, straightening his bow-tie, you get up from the table because you want to piss, and Herr Leopold exactly know that you stood up for a piss, so he points where you find the bathroom. The situation is similar if you stood up for any other reason, Leopold finds out that one more coffee, five wines plus four apricot brandies.

This was exactly our order. How much pleasure we had in it, what a smile it brought to our cheek, how much we flushed from it! I was sitting in the dark, smoky room, which has not been renovated since the war, and my chest was kneaded by a greater pride than as if I took part at a maharaja’s party, since I had a better place here, barricaded away from the tourists flocking from France, Spain or Albion, as this place is only visited by people coming from the little corner of the world called Mitteleuropa. I thought about the two brave Moravians, the Hawelka brothers, who one day decided to leave their homeland. One went south and settled in Vienna, the other the north, and came to Krakow, and although both left forever the region of Brünn and Olmütz, none of them left the territory of the state where they were born. He in Vienna opened a café and was satisfied with it, the one in Krakow opened a deli and offered a breakfast service, a very trendy business at that time, which allowed for the habitués the on-site consumption of the purchased goods in back rooms dedicated for this purpose.


Both businesses prospered very well, so the brothers put roots in their new places. The one in Vienna became a German, the one in Krakow a Pole, he started to write his name as Hawełka, and since the Strasbourg foie gras, the Prague and Dalmatian ham, the curd of Liptov and Olomouc, the oysters of Pelješac, the Istrian truffle and the Braunschweig brawn have always ben excellent in his shop, he won the title of Purveyor to the Imperial and Royal Court. Ah, if one was permitted to print on his products in the local language, that Purv. to the Imp. and Roy.! He no longer needed any other letter of recommendation, any consumer’s recognition, laurels, professional honors, golden and silver balances, copper groschens or Michelin stars. “Purveyor to the Imperial and Royal Court”, that’s all. Even the kids in Czernowitz know that His Majesty only consumes the finest things.

Over time, the breakfast place was developed into a restaurant, whose reputation also reached beyond the borders of the Empire. The Viennese coffee house was also besieged by the art world of the imperial city as well as by large number of travelers. This is how the story of the brave Moravian brothers became part of the history of the Monarchy, and this is how it was amalgamated with the traditions of two nations, the Austrians and the Poles, with which they originally had nothing to do.”

Robert Makłowicz: Café Museum, Európa, 2012

The Bear King

However, the Hungarian crown is known not only to Iranians since their childhood, but also to the inhabitants of such far away, exotic and improbable countries like Austria.

I have seen this book cover in the shopwindow of my favorite bookshop in Vienna, the Morawa in the Wollzeile street, and although I would have entered anyway, now I was immediately looking for this book, an anthology of 101 folk tales by the Grimm brothers with 150 exquisite illustrations by Nikolaus Heidelbach.


Strangely, in the book itself I have not found this bear from the cover with the Hungarian crown in its mouth. And what is more, not even a folk tale to which it could have belonged.

After a serious consideration I came to the conclusion that this picture on the cover is a tale in itself, a charming and absurd extra tale, free from any moral lesson, for adults.